Texas Man’s Death Provokes New Taser Debate

By |November 5, 2004

The death of a Fort Worth, Tx., man after being shot with an electrified dart this week has recharged debate about the safety of the increasingly popular stun guns, reports the Houston Chronicle. Promotedas a life-saving alternative to deadly force, Tasers are used by 300 law enforcement agencieds in Texas. The sudden death of Robert Guerrero, 21, on Tuesday is the state’s third that occurred in police custody after the use of a stun gun.

The incident did not shake Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt’s conviction that his pending order for $4.7 million in Tasers will help save lives, not end them. “Tasers give officers another option besides their handguns when they are confronted by someone with a weapon other than a gun or by someone who is mentally ill,” he said. Nationally, more than 70 fatal incidents involving Tasers have been reported, said Ed Jackson of Amnesty International USA. However, a 2004 Arizona Republic review of autopsy reports for people who died nationwide after being stunned showed that medical examiners mentioned Tasers as a factor in only five deaths.

TCR AT A GLANCE

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It's almost impossible for the bureau to track people like the North Carolina man who fired shots in a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant in a quest for a phony child sex ring. “There’s not a lot of bandwidth for ... these one-offs.” says former FBI official Ron Hosko.

The New York Times, which tracked every shooting in Chicago, returns to the area where many of them are concentrated. "It's about desperation, decadence, depression and rage,” says the Rev. Marshall E. Hatch Sr., who has given eulogies for at least 12 victims of violence this year.

"Prescription opioid misuse and use of heroin and illicitly manufactured fentanyl are intertwined and deeply troubling problems," says director Tom Frieden of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. The heroin-related death total topped the number of gun homicides by 10 cases.